Inspiration - Laputa

J. Over at "Victoria's Boys in Red" recently added a great feature to his site - an index of imagi-nations. This is basically a listing of imaginary nations people have concocted for gaming. This is a pretty common thing, I've noticed, and has a lot of appeal, even when playing historical games.

By making up a location, you have the ability to make it fit the games you want to play by creating terrain, cultures, hazards and other setting details that are customized to your needs. It also allows more culturally sensitive players to relieve some of the angst about bashing on a real-world culture, but this really is more of a byproduct than anything else.

This whole idea is one I've used in the past but J's posting inspired me to consider doing a full-on VSF nation of my own, but I didn't want to do something that everyone has done before. I thought of obscure European nations or even revisiting the long-ignored United States, but those didn't sit well with me. The Near and Far East also left me flat for ideas. Then my mind turned to one of my favorite imaginary places - Laputa.

Now, I'm aware that the Laputa story dates back to before the Victorian Age, but the myth fits in well with many of the themes of VSF. A lost kingdom of advanced sciences and pseudo-scientific pursuits. It's also in the air, so it fits with airships, fliers and the preoccupation with flight. Laputa also has other lands subordinate to it in a sort of imperial manner. These are other, earth-bound islands that associate with and are ruled over by Laputa. All of this sets up for some sort of VSF kingdom or power.

The big chore was going through and cutting through all the "goofy" sociopolitical commentary that was written into the original stories about Laputa and coming up with something that works for a gaming setting. Some of this I borrowed from Hayao Miyazaki's version of Laputa, but without his fallen kingdom angle. Another way of handling this was to reduce some of the literary details to their more elemental level and reinterpret them as real-world details - sort of like trying to make history out of the Iliad. So this is what I set out to do.

So, this is my new project for a VSF army. I'll be posting more about it later, perhaps even giving it it's own blog later. I plan to put the project into full gear in the New Year, buying new minis and getting them painted and posted. My hope is that I will have a new digital camera in the new year as well. Keep an eye out and see what mysteries the Laputian Empire has to offer.

Thanks,

-Eli

Inspiration - American VSF

The good ol' U.S.-of-A doesn't get much lip service in VSF, it would seem. I think it's the whole "V" part of that equation. I also think that a good chunk of it is also based on the fact that Americans of that era were pretty busy tooling around their own continent and settling things there to get involved in all that colonial stuff (okay, we tried, but never were too good at it). But anyways, I digress. I have found a nice piece of inspiring fiction that folks may or may not heard of. It's called "The Year the Cloud Fell".

I haven't finished it yet, but it is a very nice piece of alternate history with a few VSF elements in it. You have a USA that never was, where Custer is president and where his son builds an ill-fated airship. You also have, and here's the nifty part, Native Americans who ride duck-billed dinosaurs, they call Whistlers. The NA have managed to halt American expansion with the Cheyenne Alliance and the fact that horse cavalry is useless against dino cavalry because the dinos spook the horses too much.

So far, I am really enjoying the book and its in-depth portrayal of the NA culture in the setting. Not only are Whistlers present, but you also have Hardbacks (ankylosaurs) and Walkers (some sort of dangerous predator that I think my be T-rex) mentioned. The US is not the same as we would know it having new territories and states that do not or never did exist and their are steam powered automobiles in use.

All in all it seems a good read and the author, Kurt R. A. Giambastiani, seems to really hold the subject matter dear to him. His descriptions of the plains tribes and the setting are evocative and endearing. Sure, some of his characters may seem a bit cliche on the surface, but this quickly withers away as you read into the book.

Now, how can I do dino-riding Indians?

-Eli

Heroes and Madmen

Pulp Personalities - Big Griff, Katarina Vlasco, and Miss Nova Ilyakova. Griff is from Pulp Figures, Katarina is a Copplestone fig and Nova is from Artizan.

I have been working on some Pulp genre personalities for over a year now, but haven't had much motivation to paint them since I stopped playing any regular Pulp games. Today at work, I was able to finish up a few while things were slow (yes, I can paint at work). I have been trying my hand at shading and highlighting, but I'm still pretty new to that stuff, so I'm not all that sure how it worked. Though I have given them names, these are more just the personalities I assigned during the painting process to establish "character". They could easily stand in for any Pulp characters that were needed.

Then there is this guy. He turned out really well and has to be one of the most versatile conversions I have created. From his humble beginnings as a cast-off Celt mini in a box, he has become the perfect mini to use as a castaway, aged jungle man, wild barbarian, axe-wielding lunatic, etc..

Anyhow, hope you enjoy this latest display of what is managing to creep off my painting table.

Thanks,

-Eli

Savage Beastmen of The Nega-Zone...

...or whatever I decide to use them for.

This is one of those, "I wonder what it would look like..." projects. The basis for this project was a dusty old box of plastic Warhammer Orc Warriors that had been taking up space for years. I decided to see if I could make them into something for use in my Pulp games. I suppose I could have just put them together and painted them up as orcs, but where is the fun in that.

What I ended up doing was putting them together pretty much stock but I flipped the heads upside down. This may sound weird at first, but there is a method to that madness. I added some matted, dreadlocked tresses to them with some grey stuff and then distressed their weapons. I also added some bits of this and that to their chest to hide the odd connection that the flipped heads created.

I also wanted to make some of them armed with some sort of handgun and so I took the spear hands and turned them into rifle hands by adding stocks made from putty, muzzles made out of shield spokes that had been bored out, and adding a trigger block with pieces from a tank model.

The end result was pretty cool and I really wish I had a camera that could show you the full effect but once I picked out the details that I wanted t stand out as the new faces on what had been the orc heads, these creatures really tok on a life of their own. I'll post some better pics later when I get mre of them painted up.

Thanks,

-Eli

Email Me

Hello all,

For those of you who might want to establish contact off the blog, I have made my email address available in my profile for a limited time. I will be leaving it viewable until the end of November at which time I will conceal it again. This is not an attempt to be evasive but I'd rather not leave myself wide open. If having my email available doesn't get abused, then I'll likely leave it up.

If you'd like to communicate off the blog, then drop me an email. Please tell me who you are and give me something that identifies you as a truly interested party and not some spammer.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

-Eli

Pulp Quickies

Sometimes you just come up with something quick and fun and these two little dudes are just that sort of thing. I ended up with loads of little egg shapes from the nest for the Parrot Men hut project and decided to make something besides more aerofauna.

I decided to make a couple of pulp style robots - one good, one bad.

They were both constructed rather quickly by gluing a few parts from various 1/144 helicopter models to them. On the good (silver) one I added an engine intake for the eye, a chin gun for the antenna, and a piece of the engine housing as the "backpack". It ended up looking rather simple and elegant.

The evil (black) one was made much simpler and more spartan by simply adding a headlight piece off of a tank model for the eye and leaving it at that. This gives it less character and makes it seem much less humane. I painted him with gloss black t give him that polished, jackboot look.

I think both of them will make excellent sidekick robots or even objectives in scenarios. They both seem like some sort of administrative droids or perhaps probes.

Hope you enjoy and sorry for the blurry pic. My camera didn't like the gloss and metallic finishes.

-Eli

Finished Parrot Men Hut

So, I finished the first Parrot Men hut today. This was a mixed success and I'm not entirely happy with the finished product, but it's good for a first go. After four drybrushing starting with an even dry brushing of brown and straw colors over the black and then with a mottling drybrushing of a darker straw color and a mossy green color, the coloration and shading seemed natural enough. I also drybrushed a bit of a light brown color across the nest portion to add a bit of depth and weathering to the nest.

What I am not happy with on this build is that I overlooked the bottom edge of the thatched roof so it comes off too uniform. Also, I was not able to accomplish the radiation perch pole veranda that I wanted to add to the outside of the nest. Hopefully this will be easy to fix on future versions of the hut.

The hut is not attached to the branch (found just before I snapped the pic in the sopping rain outside) so it can be placed as needed with whatever terrain I'm using. I left a length of wire attached to the bottom of the hut so that it could be wired into place on branches. I decided not to make the first hut a hanging nest hut and may decide against doing one of those at all.

Hope you like it,

-Eli

Things Have Slowed a Bit

Sorry to be so scarce on posts of late. I think I hit a sort of stall point last month. I kept cranking stuff out and posting on it and now I find myself stumped as to what to do next. I have plenty to do, but what is it I do next. There is plenty to finish and even more new stuff to start, but I really feel I need to get something done on some of the stuff I have already started so I really am trying to figure out what projects excite me with now.

I'll keep posting, but figured I'd just pop on to say that November might be a bit slow until I can start producing results on some of my projects.

Thanks for being patient,

-Eli

I So Want to Build These Guys

The Herculoids.

Nuff Said.

I remember watching these guys as a kid. Along with Thundar, Space Ghost, Blackstar and Flash Gordon, they were among my favorite cartoons. Throughout my life I have constantly found myself returning to them - toys, monster designs, even finding epidoes of them on YouTube. Now, I have this crazy idea to try and build them in 28mm.

All of them seem pretty straight forward and should be easily converted from various figs. Zock, Igoo and Tantor all resemble various fantastic or prehistoric creatures. The human family are all just barbarians and there is no shortage of those in 28mm. And come on, Gleep and Gloop, they are pretty much amorphous blobs.

Heheh....like I need a new project.

-Eli

Plans for November

Well, this seems to be the "in thing" to do on gaming blogs these days, so I thought I'd be trendy and throw out a declaration of my own. It seems the thing to do after the whirlwind month of posting in October. I got a lot posted but didn't get very far on any one project. I just keep finding new things to do instead of finishing the ones ?I already have going.

Here it goes.

This month I plan to work on the following -

1) Troll Bloods. I had a huge windfall of minis to add to my Hordes army. Some of them were already nicely painted and even in the same paint scheme I had planned (bonus!). I hope I can paint anywhere near the level of these.

2) Parrot Men. I don't even play a game for these right now and I've already accumulated 30+ GW Kroot to use for them. I've got about 15 of them modified and base-coated and ready to add color. What can I say, I love the Kroot figs.

3) 28mm Scifi Scratchbuilt Jetbike Contest. I have until the end of November to get a scifi bike and rider done for entry into Rattrap's Speakeasy forum contest. So far, I have....well, I got nothing. But dang it I am not going to give up!!!

At this point, I don't want to set too lofty a goal for myself, especially when I am bound to get sidetracked.

Hey look, a chicken...

-Eli

Inspiration in a Bottle

I found this medication bottle laying about the house someplace about a month ago but couldn't bring myself to throw it away. I am not sure quite why, but it seemed to grab my attention as something that might be used. Now, I couldn't think of any of my current projects that it fit into, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it might make a nice something by itself. Since finding it, I been throwing various bits into the bottle and am going to try to make something out of it using those bits.

This is another adventure down the path of junk building, I suppose, but I am thinking it might be fun to do, just to see what comes of it.

What do you think it might become?

-Eli